2013 September - 10 articles
China is constructing new commercial buildings at an enormous rate—roughly 2 billion square meters per year, with considerable interest and activity in green design and construction. We review the context of commercial building design and constructio...
This paper presents the results of a protocol study which compares designers’ behavior in a parametric design environment (PDE) and a geometric modeling environment (GME). An experiment was conducted in which seven designers were required to complete...
Construction project delays emanates from multiplicity of different sources of risk events. This, combined with high uncertainty in cause-effect relationships between the events and their impacts on project completion dates, have created immense diff...
My paper discusses an East Asian notion of climate and its significance for sustainability. A particular reference is the environmental philosophy of Tetsuro Watsuji (1889–1960), a Japanese philosopher who reflected upon the meaning of climate, or “f...
When the external measurements of a building are fixed, an increase in external wall thickness caused by additional insulation, for example, will lead to loss of saleable floor area. This issue has to be taken into account in the evaluation of invest...
Earthbag construction is a sustainable, low-cost, housing option for developing countries. Earthbag structures are built of individual soil-filled fabric bags (i.e., sand bags) stacked in a running bond pattern. Once stacked, earthbags are compacted...
Directive 2002/91/EC EPBD introduced the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) as a tool to guide the real estate market in the creation of products (buildings) with improved energy performances. The EPC’s information could be useful in the determinat...
The creation and management of buildings over their lifecycle involves the cooperation of many organizations, which broadly fall into a client domain and AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) domain. While this mix of expertise is essential,...
Socially just, intergenerational urban spaces should not only accommodate children and adolescents, but engage them as participants in the planning and design of welcoming spaces. With this goal, city agencies in Boulder, Colorado, the Boulder Valley...
The time for performance of a project is usually of the essence to the employer and the contractor. This has made it quite imperative for contracting parties to analyse project delays for purposes of making right decisions on potential time and/or co...
